Desert Gardening Expert Speaks I

In this, the first of a two part interview with author Judith Phillips, the New Mexico writer gives a frank and interesting perspective to desert gardening.

DG: What got you interested in gardening, and xeric gardening in particular?

JP: Gardening became a passion when I lived in Indiana and had the great good fortune of working at a nursery where the owner and experienced staff mentored those of the junior workers who showed an interest. I came to New Mexico with a reader’s familiarity with native plants that I had read about in ethno-botanical papers. They sounded so beautiful and interesting, and I went looking for them on the mesas and foothills which only strengthened my admiration. Yet the nurseries here were growing the same plants I had learned about, grown and sold at the nursery there. Indiana has 30+ inches of annual precipitation in a bad year and loamy rich soil. Central New Mexico has only 10 inches of precipitation in an exceptionally good year and little if any organic matter in the soil. I wondered why the natives weren’t being grown, and decided to find out.

DG: In your introduction to your New Mexico Gardener’s Guide, you wrote that ‚”New Mexico began to liberate me from the homogeneity of urban horticulture,” and noted that this was a paraphrase of author D. H. Lawrence, who also lived in New Mexico. What do you mean by that?

JP: There is a veneer of relatively few plants shadowing most human conceived landscapes. At the Cairo Flower Show (in Egypt, not Illinois) almost all of the plants on display were one’s I’d already grown either indoors or out. Flowering kale in Egypt… I think we can do better than reducing the wealth of plant life to such parochial options and the local natives are a good place to start. Not every native plant is garden worthy, but so many are‚Äîno matter where you live. We should conserve them as dynamic communities, not relics of nature lost.

DG: Xeric gardening, xeriscaping and water-wise gardening in general are becoming more and more popular. To what do you attribute this?

JP: When done well, it’s gorgeous and feels right? People know a good thing when they see it.

DG: The United States, and particularly the Southwest, has been designated an at risk area by an United Nations study on available and renewable fresh water. We already know that neither the Colorado River nor the Rio Grande reach the sea anymore. Population growth has contributed mightily to the surface water (and aquifer) depletion in the Southwest. As population continues to grow, and more pressure is placed on the fresh water systems, do you see any solutions to this?

JP: Your summary above is daunting, and yet only part of the picture. Urban sprawl contributes to heating that in turn increases water use by plants and stresses plants not adapted to the higher temps. Using more surface water to reduce aquifer depletion temporarily reduces damage to the structure of the aquifer by subsidence, but Albuquerque has reduced per capita use by 30% in the last 15 years and is still taking twice what is naturally available in a good year. Much more efficient construction is needed to capture rainfall and recycle indoor water. We need more efficient landscape and agricultural irrigation. We also need to use plants that are arid-adapted, and worth the water invested in them. Add to this, more efficient management of water, planning done in 50 to 100 year time frames, not the current 10 to 30 year cycles, and slower, smarter growth, are necessary components and basic beginning places to address the situation.

Water is not a commodity because it is basic to life. While water should be valued as a precious resource, it can’t be priced out of reach of the lowest income households. But waste should be taxed beyond what is acceptable because despite our economy (and) culture of greedy exploitation, we need to learn to share.